Do You Care About Your Vision? Then Sell It.

In the physical sense, having vision simply means to have the ability to see what most everyone else does. Vision in the leadership sense, though, is to see what others do not. It’s a method of, yes, sometimes projecting into the future; but mostly it’s a skill of diagnosing a situation for what it truly is.

This is a lonely job. People think you’re crazy or unreasonable. And because vision is always a critique to the status quo, people also think you’re mean or uncaring towards those that are linked to the “same old way.”

And so one of the greatest mistakes visionaries make is assuming that people will jump on board automatically. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how enthusiastic you are, eventually you have to do the tough work of selling that vision. Persuasion is not manipulation. You don’t have to feel like you’re watering your vision down. Take the time to sit down for coffee, to listen, and to accept feedback or even criticism. In the end, a lonely vision is a dead one. You need others.